These objects are subjected to a large number of violent impacts amongst one another and on the path walls likely to damage them and slightly reject them, especially if they they are rather brittle or fragile. A known device shown on FIG. 1 includes inside a slanted well 1 a set of locks 2 forming superimposed traps and each composed of a blade 3 with one end screwed to a pivoting axis 4. The blades 3 are recessed with the shape of a comb and therefore contain parallel slits 5 into which the objects to be carried down, such as pellets 6, are distributed evenly. The locks 2 are controlled so as to lower the plates 3 in succession for a short while so as to allow the packets of pellets 6 to fall as far as the immediately lower plate 3. In correlation with the inclination of the well 1, it is therefore possible to attenuate the free fall of the pellets 6, but they remain subject to a large number of impacts when they have left the well 1 and fall into a storage container 7. It is therefore desirable to perfect this type of device.
This can be achieved by the invention and is based on the notion of attenuating in another way the fall of the objects carried and lowered whilst significantly reducing the number of times of them striking one another on the path. The discontinuous falling movement via packets of objects, characteristic of the device briefly described above, is replaced by an independent continuous falling movement of the objects, this being obtained by means of a different disposition of the well and the braking blades occupying it.
More specifically, the blades are fixed, the well includes an elastic wall situated in front of and at a certain distance from the lower edges of the blades, the device further including a track situated under the blades and rounded between one upper approximately vertical edge and connected to the well and an approximately horizontal edge extending under the elastic wall. In addition, the blades and track are covered with a damping material. The objects slide or roll onto the blades without acquiring any significant kinetic energy owing to the damping procured by these blades, and the speed they have acquired is sufficient to project them onto the elastic wall and rebounding from said wall so as to fall back onto the lower blade where an identical movement is resumed. The intended purpose of the lower track is to absorb the fall energy of the objects and make them leave the device at a horizontal speed, which is relatively slow on account of its damping properties.
Other additions and improvements can be made to the carrying device described above: it can in particular be applied to the filling of a container, such as said container 7, by the objects, it then being advantageous for the objects to be laid down by successive layers in the container. It is advisable that the well slides vertically inside a support connected to a lifting device, that the support of the well and the container be connected by a device sending them an alternative horizontal movement, or that the well is fed by a conveyor ending in front of the blades and able to move transversally with an alternative movement.
The variable nature of the objects carried and the empirical character of the phenomena produced on falling may require that a large number of preliminary tests or device adjustment changes be made. Depending on the case, the stiffness of the blades, their distance from the elastic wall or the tension of said wall shall be modified.